Jets at Senators
The Ottawa Senators are the only team in the league without a regulation loss at home and look to keep that streak intact when they host the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday night. The Senators are coming off a pair of impressive victories at home, knocking off Detroit 3-1 on Tuesday before blanking Minnesota 3-0 on Thursday to improve to 4-0-2 at Canadian Tire Centre. Ottawa has had its way with the Jets of late, winning five of the past six meetings and scoring at least four goals in each of the victories.
The Jets had their three-game winning streak halted with a 4-3 shootout loss to the high-powered Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, but they extended their point streak to seven games (5-0-2) and showed plenty of resilience in erasing a two-goal deficit. "I think it's encouraging the way we didn't give up," forward Blake Wheeler said. "It went to 3-1, and it was looking like a tough mountain. It was a hard-earned point." The matchup kicks off a five-game road trip for Winnipeg, which is 4-2-1 away from home.
TV: 7 p.m. ET, RSN
ABOUT THE JETS (7-5-2): Although Winnipeg has been unable to slow down Ottawa's offense, yielding 13 goals while losing the last three matchups, it has shown a marked improvement on defense during its seven-game point streak. The Jets have surrendered only nine goals in that span - a run that included consecutive road shutouts against the New York Rangers and Chicago. One reason is a penalty-killing unit that ranks third in the league at 89.3 percent and snuffed out all five chances by Pittsburgh's league-best power play to improve to 17-for-17 over the past five games.
ABOUT THE SENATORS (7-3-2): Ottawa has been getting solid production from its "Kid Line" of Mark Stone, Mike Hoffman and Curtis Lazar, who have combined for four goals and five assists in the past four games. "Moving forward here we want to continue to improve, and obviously the chemistry is there," said Hoffman, who scored twice in the win over Minnesota. "I don't think teams really expect it too much, so we kind of catch them a little bit." Clarke MacArthur also tallied against the Wild to give him five goals in the past five games and boost his team-leading total to seven.
OVERTIME
1. Senators G Craig Anderson, who has allowed one goal in his last two starts, is 11-2-2 lifetime against the Jets.
2. Winnipeg G Ondrej Pavelec has struggled versus Ottawa with a 4-9-0 record and 3.47 goals-against average.
3. MacArthur has nine goals in 22 games against the Jets.